#85 Nick Fuentes and the Internet’s Real Power

Nick Fuentes didn’t appear in a vacuum — and this episode isn’t about defending or denouncing him.

It’s about why certain voices cut through during moments of institutional fatigue — and why the same mechanics repeat across the political spectrum.

Drawing on campus observations, recent media flashpoints, and Episode #52 (The Pendulum Swing of Gen Z), we look at how attention, irony, certainty, and drift shape what rises online.

Not persuasion — selection.

And if something in the conversation feels clarifying, this episode asks a quieter question:
Is it informing you — or just making things feel simpler?

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Problem
• 2:03 The Appeal Of Unbothered Posture
• 5:11 Institutions Versus The Attention Economy
• 8:11 Outrage As Fuel
• 11:02 Emotion Before Ideology
• 14:08 Certainty Replaces Institutional Trust
• 16:43 The Tucker And Piers Reactions
• 19:45 Refusal, Boundaries, And Perceived Fear
• 22:22 Old Tools In A New Media World
• 26:06 Mechanics Of Virality And Irony
• 30:01 Engagement Mirage And Monetization
• 33:25 Irony As Armor, Masculinity As Signal
• 37:06 Steelmanning The Mainstream Explanation
• 40:40 Selection Pressure Over Persuasion

Transcript

Jim Detjen: 0:00

There's a moment, somewhere between the latest viral meltdown and the 15th think piece about the future of the right when something uncomfortable becomes hard to ignore. Young men aren't listening to the people who are supposed to be speaking for them. They're listening to the people who show up, not the most careful voices, not the most restrained ones, just the ones willing to say something, anything, without flinching. And lately, one of those voices belongs to a man who seems almost engineered for the exact moment we're living in. Nick Fuentes, a figure who operates at the strange intersection of shock comedy, political provocation, and pure algorithmic gravity. Someone who can say something incendiary, half joking, half deadpan, then immediately wrap it in irony. Just enough that you're never quite sure whether you're supposed to take it seriously or not at all. On paper, none of this should work. And yet, somehow, it does. Fuentes has become a kind of stress test for conservative media, for college campuses, for institutions that rely on moral authority, and for a generation that grew up fluent in irony, suspicious of lectures, and deeply unimpressed by anyone trying too hard to sound reasonable. But here's the contradiction that actually matters. He isn't attracting the people you'd expect. He's attracting young men, often online, often cynical, often politically homeless, who look around and feel like the rules changed quietly, without a memo. They're not necessarily drawn to his ideas, they're drawn to the signal, the signal that says, I'm not scared of being disliked. I'm not interested in qualifying every sentence. I'm not pretending this all makes sense. In a culture saturated with disclaimers, that posture alone can feel like clarity. We've all seen the headlines, we've all watched the clips, we've all seen media outlets oscillate between panic, outrage, and the quiet realization that telling people not to watch something has never once worked. But none of that answers the real question. Why does a figure like this feel legible, not morally, not politically, but emotionally, to a specific subset of Gen Z men? Because something deeper is happening beneath the noise, something less about ideology and more about environment. A generation raised inside institutions that promised coherence, then delivered contradiction. That talked endlessly about inclusion, while offering very little guidance on who you're allowed to become. The result wasn't rebellion at first, it was drift. Irony became armor, memes became language, detachment became the safest emotional posture in the room. And in that environment, the people who thrive aren't always the most thoughtful, they're the ones who seem unbothered. You can criticize Fuentes, you can dismiss him, you can refuse to engage. But if you want to understand why he keeps showing up, why he keeps pulling attention like a magnet, you have to look at the vacuum around him. The same vacuum Gen Z's pendulum has been swinging through for years, the same vacuum that left a lot of young men with instructions for what not to be and very little sense of what to build instead. This episode isn't about defending Nick Fuentes. It's not about condemning him either. It's about understanding why figures like him emerge at all, and what that tells us about masculinity, irony, power, and a generation that doesn't trust anyone who sounds too sure of themselves. Because until you understand the environment, the personalities will keep surprising you. And today, we're going there. This is Think First, where we don't follow the script. We question it. Because in a world full of poetic truths and professional gaslighting, someone's got to say the quiet part out loud.

Nick Fuentes: 4:24

It just gets crazier and crazier. So crazy. We really are through the looking glass because I feel like I'm the only one that makes sense. I feel like I'm the only one that's telling the truth about what is happening in the world. It's very obvious. It's white genocide and Jewish power. Those are the two things that are happening in the world. And they're two things you're not allowed to talk about. Everybody knows it, everybody sees it. It's not hateful, it's not extreme. It's not because of my dad. It's not because of the housing market. It's not because of the economy. It's that simple. And for this, I am now being formally condemned by the upper body of the U.S. legislature, by the United States Senate. It has been proposed by Chuck Schumer, co-sponsored by every other Democrat. It condemns me by name. It condemns Tucker for talking to me. It condemns Paul and Grascia for like knowing about me. It condemns Kevin Roberts for not condemning Tucker for talking to me. And it's like five pages. And three of the pages are just documenting every anti-Semitic thing I've ever said. I said Hitler had aura. I said Hitler is cool. I said uh it's Fear Her Friday. And it's really not that deep. I've seen all these think pieces explaining my appeal. They're doing it to death, one after the other, from the spectator, from Rod Dreher, from Ross Dowhat, from all these people. Why is he so popular? Why is this happening? What is this about? We have a Jewish oligarchy, and our race is being genocided. It's that simple, bro. And it's just like, I don't know how else to say it. People go, why is he popular? Well, do you watch the show? The show is funny. I'm charismatic, and I'm correct.

Jim Detjen: 6:53

The first thing to understand about the Nick Fuentes moment is that it didn't start with him. It started with platforms trying to decide what responsibility looks like when attention becomes currency. It started with institutions that lost credibility faster than they realized, and it started with a generation that learned very early that official narratives tend to age poorly. Fuentes didn't arrive out of nowhere. He arrived at the exact moment when conservative media, campus politics, and Gen Z's emotional climate all drifted out of sync, which is why the reaction to him has been so scattered. Some outlets treat him like a five-alarm fire, others treat him like a troll best ignored. Some insist on debating him, others refuse to say his name out loud, as if that might make him disappear. None of these approaches seem to slow anything down, and that's the first real stake here. If every reaction fails, the problem probably isn't the reaction, it's the environment. Camp 1, this should never have happened. Camp 2, this is free speech, deal with it. Camp 3, I don't like the guy, but everyone losing their minds is making him stronger. Within days, the usual ecosystem kicked in. Think pieces multiplied, condemnations piled up, defenses appeared, not of Fuentes himself, but of the idea that we should at least talk about it. Then came the backlash interviews. Piers Morgan brought Fuentes on and went directly for confrontation. Hard questions, raised voice, sharp moral framing. Meghan Kelly went the opposite direction, publicly saying she had no interest in interviewing him at all. Three different strategies, three very different tones. And yet, the outcome was the same: more attention, more clips, more curiosity, which leads to the second stake, when attention is the prize, even opposition can function as fuel. Every generation eventually learns this lesson the hard way. You cannot shame someone out of relevance if shame is part of their brand. Fuentes operates in a space where outrage is not a deterrent, it's proof of concept. When institutions react with panic, it reinforces the idea that he's touching a nerve. When media figures debate him aggressively, it validates him as someone worth debating. When others refuse to engage, it feeds the narrative that they're scared. None of this requires agreement from the audience. It only requires interest, and interest is something Gen Z has learned to treat like a game mechanic. Which raises a more uncomfortable question. Are institutions actually responding to Fuentes or reacting to their own fear of losing narrative control? Here's where the conversation usually goes wrong. Most commentary jumps straight to ideology, what Fuentes believes, what he says, what should be done about it. But ideology isn't the entry point for most of his audience. Emotion is, specifically, a low-grade, persistent sense that the world is lecturing them without listening back. Young men today are fluent in contradiction. They were told masculinity was dangerous, then criticized for lacking confidence. They were told vulnerability was strength, then mocked when it didn't look right. They were encouraged to express emotions, but only certain ones in approved formats. Over time, many of them didn't rebel, they disengaged. Sarcasm became safer than sincerity. Irony became safer than belief. Detachment became a kind of social armor. And in that emotional climate, figures like Fuentes don't need to be right to be compelling, they just need to appear unbothered. That's the third stake. This isn't a battle over beliefs, it's a competition over posture. Strip away the controversy for a moment and look at the mechanics. Fuentes speaks in a way that rejects constant qualification. He doesn't hedge, he doesn't pre-apologize, he doesn't sound like he's waiting for permission. In a culture where almost everyone does, that stands out. Not because it's wise, not because it's healthy, but because it's legible. And legibility is underrated. For a generation drowning in ambiguity, certainty can register as stability before anyone stops to interrogate it. Which leads to the fourth stake. When certainty disappears from institutions, it reappears in personalities. The official story about Nick Fuentes is remarkably consistent. He's framed as a problem to be managed, a provocation to be contained, a mistake that happened because someone somewhere failed to follow the rules. Depending on the outlet, the tone shifts slightly. The structure stays the same. He's either proof that the internet has gone too far, evidence that platforms are irresponsible, or a cautionary tale about what happens when gatekeepers disappear. All of these explanations share one assumption, that Fuentes is an anomaly, a glitch in the system, a fringe actor who slipped through the cracks, and if that were true, the fix would be simple: remove the platform, withdraw the attention, reassert norms, problem solved. Except that's not what happened. Because Fuentes didn't rise despite the system, he rose inside it. And the more the system reacted, the more legible he became. That's the first distortion in the story people keep telling. When Nick Fuentes appeared on Tucker Carlson's show, the reaction was immediate. Condemnation from some corners, defensiveness from others, a scramble to explain how this could possibly have happened. The subtext was clear. This should not have been allowed. But notice what that framing does. It turns the conversation into a procedural failure. Who booked him? Who approved it? Who failed to intervene? That framing is comforting, because it implies control. If the right people had stepped in earlier, if the right rules had been enforced, this wouldn't be happening. But that assumption doesn't survive contact with reality. Because Fuentes didn't need permission, he needed amplification. And amplification doesn't require endorsement, it only requires attention. When Piers Morgan brought Fuentes on his show, he chose a different strategy. Direct confrontation, moral clarity, hard questions. It made for compelling television. And it reinforced the idea that Fuentes was someone worth confronting, someone whose ideas needed to be defeated in public. But confrontation has a side effect that rarely gets discussed. It centers the provocateur. The audience doesn't just see ideas being challenged, they see the challenger taking the bait. And for a subset of viewers, especially those already cynical about institutions, that dynamic reads less like accountability and more like validation. Not of the ideas, but of the posture, unbothered versus outraged. That contrast does a lot of work.

Nick Fuentes: 14:47

So, you know, time to grow up. We're not, we're not children anymore. Am I right? Am I right? Am I right, boys? Am I right? Let's go. He was also really fucking cool. You regret saying that? Uh saying a fact?

Piers Morgan: 15:07

No, no, that's absolutely true. You think Hitler was very fucking cool? Yes, I do. One of them. And I'm tired of pretending he's not. Well, to be honest. This is the problem, you see. It's a bit like when you just say, I'm a racist. You're a racist who thinks Hitler's cool, but you're not anti-Semitic. If you're a Jewish person watching this, what are they thinking? Who's whose family members are? Oh my gosh.

Nick Fuentes: 15:34

Yeah, we we got all that. We, you know, me, me mom, me mom. Like we're, you know, I don't even know who this person is. Why is this person talking to me? This old British guy is saying me mom got killed by Hitler and Jimmy.

Piers Morgan: 15:45

Because he doesn't find it funny when you say Hitler's very fucking career. You don't care. That's fine. You don't have to care. But he does care.

Nick Fuentes: 15:54

Does that guy care about America? Does that guy care about me and my country and my family? No.

Piers Morgan: 16:00

A prominent conservative in America has to say about Adolf Hitler. And what do you mean by Hitler is very fucking cool? Because I think he's very fucking a monster.

Jim Detjen: 16:10

Okay.

Nick Fuentes: 16:13

And that's a clip. I think he's very fucking a monster. Do you hear yourself? I mean, can we all grow up? I do. Can we all grow up 12 million people?

Piers Morgan: 16:22

He murdered 12 million people. What is very fucking cool about that? Tell me.

Nick Fuentes: 16:27

Uh the edits, it's just cool. The the uniforms, the parades, the it's it's cool as a guy. You look at World War II, and it's fascinating, and it's interesting, and it's compelling, and it's cool. And, you know, we're just tired of saying these kinds of things. We want to talk like real people and give our honest opinions. And then we and then we literally get an old Jewish guy from England who's gonna say, Oh, that died very funny, mate, me mum. And it's like, shut up. Like, you know, no one is in favor of genocide. So let's just get that out of the way. We're not in favor of a Holocaust or genocide. Do you think if half your family is years ago?

Piers Morgan: 17:04

I just find it extraordinary that you would think the Holocaust could ever be something that we could joke about. Why, too soon? Is it too soon to make jokes? How many people do you think died in the Holocaust? How many Jewish people?

Nick Fuentes: 17:24

Um, I don't I don't know. I'm thinking maybe seven million. What what's the number? Seven, six million, something like that. So you you eight million?

Piers Morgan: 17:32

You can see that six million Jews died in the Holocaust.

Nick Fuentes: 17:36

Possibly more. Possibly. We're discovering all the time. Um, so it could be maybe even be more than that. So why have you why have you doubted the numbers in the past? I'll tell you why. Um I really think that every death is a tragedy, however, many Jewish people died in the Holocaust. Uh, and I'm not a World War II historian. So I'm actually open to believing the official narrative. And I've read some of the conspiracy theories. And to tell you the truth, it's a rigorous debate. But you know what's interesting about this is in many countries, it's not even legal to talk about it. And that's really where my interest in the Holocaust begins and sort of ends, to tell you the truth, is that if you wanted to question the number, you would be put in jail in about, what is it, 17 or 18 European countries? And I think that's really the more interesting conversation, which is that this is almost like a religious dogma in the West. No other genocide, no other atrocity is treated like this. Could you imagine if in the United States they said the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza is 100,000? And if you don't say that, you're going to jail, you're banned on X, you can't have a job. That's the part that's totally insane. And a lot of people, they can't even make up their minds. I think it's actually done a disservice. If your goal, if, and I'm not saying you as Piers Morgan, but if your goal, if you're an advocate for awareness about this, if your goal is to convince everybody that this is the way the Holocaust happened, I think the last thing you'd want to do is say that everyone that disagrees is in jail and is banned and you're not allowed to say it. So there's really been no open debate about the subject since the scholarship started to be produced about 60 years ago. And you can laugh at this, you can scoff at this. Our people are being genocided in our country. 50% of the live births in the United Kingdom and in the United States are non-white. In 100 years, my ancestors, your ancestors, your kids who are so empathetic and compassionate, they're going to be a minority. They're going to be a minority in maybe a Muslim country, an Indian country, an Hispanic country. And these Jewish people that are 100 years old talking about my grandparents and the Holocaust, they don't care about that. Actually, they like to see it. At the SPLC, they're literally counting down the days until. Are a minority in America. So forgive me if I don't believe them than when they talk about compassion. There's a genocide going on right now. It's not against human Jews. How many Christians are there?

Piers Morgan: 20:10

How many Christians are there in the world? Let me. One point some billion. Two million now. How many Jews are there? 15 million. Okay. So with a straight face, you're gonna tell me the world is being overrun by the Jewry, by 15 million people, when there are over a billion Christians. There is a genocide of Christians like poor old Nick Fuentes going on at the hands of these 15 million Jews. Really?

Nick Fuentes: 20:38

See, this attitude is why you're losing. When you say people, who am I losing to white people? Who am I losing to mass migration? Matt, oh, you're losing to me. We are losing as a civilization of mass migration. And here's the difference. In Israel, they have my politics. In Israel, they want to maintain a Jewish majority. If they had it their way, it would only be Jewish people. They're fighting like hell so that Jewish people can have as much territory, a Jewish state, they can be proudly Jewish in their own land. Whereas in America, we are being besieged by 10 million illegal immigrants in four years. And then whites and Christians are going to be the minority. And that's true in Canada, Australia, all the countries in Europe. So you could say there's two billion people, but what's the proportionality? What is the percentage of people being born that are white? Where's the arrow pointing? Where are we going to be in 50 years? In 50 years, there might be in Israel. In 50 years, there isn't going to be white Christians. I don't think I have a problem. I think I'm uh cheerful, boisterous. Uh look, I unlike you, I'm willing to be a little provocate. Well, I guess you're willing to be provocative, but I'm willing to be very provocative and I'm a free thinker. And I'm I don't like to be tone policed. I don't like to be told about, you know, people are going to tone police and play moral cop about you can't make this joke or you can't make this statement. And uh I think that's just about being intellectually open. I'm a believer in openness.

Piers Morgan: 22:06

I completely agree. I think you should be perfectly free to express yourself exactly how you see fit. My problem is how you see fit with some of the things that you say. And we've been through a lot of them. And I think people who don't know you very well will have been shocked in parts and surprised in other parts. Uh, but in totality, they can see you for what you are. I think we've got a lot nearer to what the real Nick Fuentes is in the last two hours than we probably have seen from your other recent interviews. Would you agree?

Nick Fuentes: 22:40

Uh, no, I mean uh the the clip thing, we've done the clip thing. We've all seen the clip show. Everyone's seen the clips. You think you're the first one to do the ADL rap sheet? So here you said this, and then here you said that. I've been playing that game for 10 years, so I this is honestly more of the same, to tell you the truth.

Jim Detjen: 22:58

Megan Kelly took the opposite approach. She declined to interview Fuentes at all. No debate, no confrontation, no spectacle. On its face, this looks like restraint, and in some ways, it is. But refusal carries its own signal. To some viewers, it communicates boundaries. To others, particularly those already distrustful of media, it confirms a suspicion. That certain conversations are off limits, and that perception matters. Because once people believe boundaries are enforced selectively, refusal stops looking like principle and starts looking like fear.

Megyn Kelly: 23:38

Our friend Piers Morgan sat down with Nick Fuentes and did the interview that everybody wanted Tucker to do with Nick Fuentes. And I'm sure this is gonna make everyone super happy and put to bed the controversy of Nick Fuentes and his appeal. Oh, wait, no, it won't at all. Um, but here's a little taste of how it went. Take a listen here to SOT 12.

Piers Morgan: 24:02

Just to clear up one of the many theories about you, I've no idea what the answer is, and you haven't got an answer. But are you actually attracted to women?

Nick Fuentes: 24:09

I am attracted to women. You're not gay. No. But I will say that women are very difficult to be around. Okay. So there's that.

Piers Morgan: 24:20

And do you think they should have the right to vote? I do not. No, absolutely not. They should stay at home. Well, yeah, absolutely. See, basically you're just a misogynist old dinosaur, aren't you? For a for a young guy. I mean, I know I'm the boomer, I know I'm the boomer here, but actually, you're a 27-year-old dinosaur, aren't you? Aren't you, Nate Fuentes? All women all women are annoying. All women grow old, they all get fat. Says the guy, have you ever had sex? No, absolutely not. Wow. Says the guy who's never got laid.

Megyn Kelly: 24:56

It's interesting, you know. Piers did his thing, but honestly, I don't understand the value that comes out of any of it. I gotta be honest. I love Piers, but like I don't get it. I don't think this is worth doing. I just think if you don't like Nick Fuentes, you should ignore Nick Fuentes.

Jim Detjen: 25:14

Platform, confront, refuse. Three different strategies, one outcome. More visibility, more curiosity, more discourse, which leads to an uncomfortable realization that runs through this part of the episode. None of these frames are actually designed for a media environment where outrage is currency and irony is armor. They're built for a world where attention can be regulated. That world no longer exists. And when the old tools fail, figures like Fuentes don't disappear. They clarify. Not because they're persuasive on the merits, but because they appear unencumbered. That uncertainty is visible, and visibility, more than ideology, is what travels. We just walked through the story people keep telling about this. Now, let's slow down and look at what's actually happening under the hood. Here's where the phenomenon stops feeling mysterious and starts feeling mechanical. Receipt number one. Attention is the product. Nick Fuentes didn't stumble into relevance by accident. His rise maps cleanly onto incentives anyone who spent time online already understands. Outrage travels, certainty converts, irony protects. Say something outrageous and you get clipped. Get clipped and you get shared. Get shared and you get context-free exposure. And context-free exposure is one of the fastest growth engines on the internet. This isn't unique to him, it's just unusually visible here, because the style is optimized for the system. Short, declarative statements, minimal hedging, high emotional contrast, plausible deniability through irony. The system doesn't ask whether something is wise, it asks whether people react. And reaction, positive or negative, looks the same to an algorithm. Receipt number two. The engagement mirage. After the high-profile media appearances, analysts noticed something odd. Engagement didn't just rise, it spiked sharply and unevenly. Digging into the data, some researchers argued that portions of the early surge appeared to originate outside the United States, including clusters in Nigeria, India, and Pakistan. That doesn't automatically mean anything on its own, but it complicates the story. Because it suggests that what looks like grassroots momentum may, at least in part, be amplified by automated systems, coordinated networks, or engagement farming that has nothing to do with belief. Fuentes's response to this criticism is straightforward. He's dismissed the institutes behind the reports as ideological adversaries and argued that critics call the numbers fake because they don't want to admit he has actual fans. Two claims, same metrics, different interpretations. Which is the point. In digital environments, numbers don't just measure attention, they shape it. Receipt number three, monetization before mobilization. One of the more revealing aspects here isn't what's said, it's how the operation is structured. Subscriptions, tiered access, exclusive chats, merchandise. On the surface, it looks like a modern media business, and in many ways, it is, but this structure didn't appear in a vacuum. For years, Fuentes was de-platformed across major social networks and effectively blacklisted from traditional advertising and payment rails. Whatever you think of him, that reality forces a different infrastructure, direct audience support, subscriptions, alternative platforms, a model that only works if an audience is already forged. Not overnight, but over years, often starting long before adulthood. Which reframes the economics. This isn't just monetization, it's survivability. Receipt number four, irony as armor. Irony does more work here than most people realize. To older audiences, irony looks evasive. To younger audiences, it looks protective. Irony creates distance. Distance creates safety. If something lands, you meant it. If it doesn't, it was a joke. That ambiguity isn't accidental. It's functional. It allows participation without full commitment. Identity without vulnerability. In environments where sincerity is punished faster than cynicism, irony becomes a survival skill, and figures who deploy it fluently feel native to the medium. Receipt number five. Masculinity as a market signal. This is where what I've elsewhere called the masculine mirage matters. For years, cultural messaging around masculinity oscillated between warning labels and vague encouragement. Be better, be softer, be stronger. But also, don't be too much. The result wasn't transformation, it was confusion, and confusion creates demand, not necessarily for answers, but for posture. Someone who appears confident, someone who seems immune to shame, someone who doesn't sound like they're asking permission. That posture becomes the product, not because it solves the problem, but because it acknowledges it. Taken together, these mechanics suggest something important. The phenomenon isn't primarily ideological, it's infrastructural. It lives at the intersection of algorithmic incentives, monetized attention, ironic communication norms, and a generation negotiating identity without a clear map. Once you see that, the question shifts. There's a whole chapter on this in Distorted, not a conspiracy, just a pattern that keeps repeating. It's no longer about belief, it becomes about environment. Why does this environment keep elevating figures who thrive under these conditions? And once that question is on the table, the frame starts to crack. We're living in a moment where truth feels strangely negotiable. A headline can be technically wrong, yet emotionally persuasive. A narrative can fall apart under scrutiny and still survive in the group chat. And institutions keep saying, trust us, even when the facts have quietly drifted out of frame. Distorted is the book that asks the uncomfortable question behind all of this. How does a society lose its grip on what's real while believing it's becoming more informed? It's not a memoir, it's not a manifesto, it's a map of the psychological shortcuts, storytelling maneuvers, and cultural incentives that shape our perception long before we notice the shaping. Drawing from behavioral science, media history, political strategy, and hundreds of real-world examples, Distorted shows why even thoughtful people, especially thoughtful people, get pulled into narratives that feel true but aren't. If you sense there's a pattern beneath the chaos, you're right. And this book helps you see it. Distorted arrives February 10th on Barnes Noble, Amazon, Audible, and your favorite bookstore. It's your book for understanding the moment we're all living through and why questioning the script might be the most rational thing you can do. Alright, back to the show. Up to this point, there's a very reasonable explanation on the table. It goes something like this: Young men are being pulled toward extreme figures because they're confused, alienated, and spending too much time online. Add algorithms, add irony, add outrage, then mix. Out comes Nick Fuentes. It's a tidy story. It has villains, it has mechanisms, and it gives institutions something familiar to push against. So let's slow down and steel man it. Honestly. Because if the explanation is solid, it should hold up under pressure. Here's the strongest form of the mainstream argument. Platforms reward outrage. Young men are drifting. Bad actors exploit that drift. Institutions fail to intervene early enough. Therefore, the solution is better moderation, fewer platforms, clearer boundaries, and stronger gatekeeping. There's truth in this. Algorithms do reward engagement. Young men are navigating a confusing cultural landscape. And once a figure reaches escape velocity online, it becomes very hard to slow them down. If you stop here, the story feels complete. But here's the problem. If this explanation were sufficient, we'd expect a few things to be true. We'd expect outrage to reduce interest, we'd expect exposure to burn people out, we'd expect clearer boundaries to restore trust. But that's not what's happening. Instead, the more forcefully institutions react, the more attention consolidates. The more clearly lines are drawn, the more people test them. The harder certainty is discouraged, the more it reappears, just in different places. That suggests something else is going on. Not radicalization in the classic sense, not ideological conversion, but selection pressure. In any environment, certain traits get rewarded. Not because they're good, not because they're healthy, but because they work. In the current media environment, the traits that tend to outperform look like this high certainty, low apology, irony-friendly delivery, visible immunity to shame, comfort with conflict. Figures who have those traits don't need to persuade. They just need to remain standing. Over time, attention flows toward whatever holds its posture the longest. That's not ideology, that's physics. This is where what I've elsewhere called the masculine mirage comes back into focus. For years, young men have been given very clear messaging about what not to be. Don't dominate, don't interrupt, don't be aggressive, don't be too certain. At the same time, they've received far less guidance on what to build instead. What does grounded masculinity look like? What does leadership without dominance sound like? What does confidence without arrogance feel like? Those questions rarely get answered. So the vacuum stays open. And when a vacuum stays open, posture rushes in. Not because it's correct, but because it's visible. It's tempting to frame this as a uniquely conservative problem, but that misses the pattern. Gen Z has watched mirages inflate everywhere. If this feels familiar, it connects directly to episode number 52, The Pendulum Swing of Gen Z, where we talked about how disillusionment doesn't disappear, it swings. Inclusion metrics treated as culture, engagement numbers treated as consensus, visibility treated as virtue. They've learned, sometimes the hard way, that scale doesn't always equal substance. Once that lesson sinks in, trust erodes. Not selectively, broadly. So when institutions lean on numbers, policies, and moral framing without relational credibility, they don't regain authority. They lose it faster. The frame collapses not because the mainstream explanation is wrong, but because it's incomplete. It accounts for technology, it accounts for incentives, but it underestimates identity formation, especially masculine identity. When people don't feel represented by institutions, they stop seeking approval from them. They look sideways, toward personalities, toward subcultures, toward figures who seem unaffected by the rules everyone else is following. Not because those figures are persuasive on the merits, but because they appear unencumbered. Instead of asking whether any one person should have a platform, a more revealing question is this. What kind of environment makes this posture consistently outperform alternatives? Because if one figure disappears tomorrow, the environment stays, and environments don't stop selecting, they just select the next person who fits. That's the collapse of the frame, not a failure of moderation, a mismatch between how institutions think authority works and how this generation actually responds to it. Once you see the mechanics, it becomes harder to unsee them. Not just in politics, not just on the right, but across how authority, identity, and credibility actually move in everyday life. At a certain point, you can stop talking about any single person, because if the pattern only worked for one name, it wouldn't be much of a pattern. What ends up moving people right now isn't always the position, it's the posture. Who sounds calm when everyone else sounds anxious, who doesn't hedge every sentence, who doesn't look like they're waiting for permission to speak. That doesn't make the content better, it makes it legible, and legibility travels. You see this everywhere, in social feeds, in brand statements, on campuses, inside corporations. The positions change. The posture pattern doesn't. Another thing you start noticing, how often numbers have replaced meaning. Follower counts become credibility, engagement becomes agreement, dashboards quietly turn into values. Once you've lived inside that long enough, you stop assuming scale equals truth. But here's the part that matters even when you know metrics are imperfect, they still shape perception. Big numbers feel stabilizing, momentum feels directional. That's not gullibility, that's human pattern recognition working with limited information. If numbers were truth, Instagram would already be a religion. Then there's irony, not as a joke, but as a buffer. Say something with just enough ambiguity to leave an exit. If it lands, it counts. If it doesn't, it was a joke. That distance isn't always evasive. Sometimes it's protective, especially in environments where sincerity gets punished faster than cynicism. Irony lets people participate without fully committing. It's efficient, it's protective, and it lets you opt out of sincerity, which is still the riskiest move online, which is why it spreads. Rather than predictions, think of these as pressure gauges. When trust drops, institutions often respond by measuring harder, more data, more dashboards, more proof. But when the issue is relational, measurement rarely fixes it. It usually accelerates the disconnect. At the same time, you start seeing more personalities and fewer structures. When systems lose legitimacy, people don't wait around for reform. They look for individuals who seem capable of standing outside the rules, not to follow blindly, but to borrow posture. That's a sign the environment is still selecting for visibility over formation. None of this requires panic, and none of it requires choosing sides. It requires noticing how incentives shape behavior and how identity adapts when guidance disappears. When institutions sound unsure, posture becomes authority. When formation is absent, performance rushes in. And when that happens, the next figure isn't an anomaly, they're a response. So, if this episode felt less like an argument and more like a diagnosis, that's why. Before we close, this is the part where Think First always slows the room down. Not to tell you what to believe, but to help you notice patterns no matter who you're listening to. Because what's happening right now isn't a sudden swing toward radical ideas, it's a retreat from institutions that forgot how to form people. In that vacuum, ideas don't win debates anymore. Posture wins attention. Certainty doesn't spread because it's right, it spreads because it stands still. Irony becomes armor. Poetic truth rushes in when real clarity goes missing. And the internet doesn't sit there persuading anyone. It watches, it tests, and it quietly selects whatever holds its shape the longest. Which means the real story here was never about one person. So the next time you hear something that feels clarifying, whether it's coming from Nick Fuentes or Rachel Maddow, it's worth pausing and asking a few quiet questions. Is this actually informing you or just making things feel simpler? If the confidence disappeared, would the idea still stand on its own? Would this feel as convincing if it came from someone you already distrust? And if not, what exactly is doing the work here? Those questions don't tell you what's true, they help you notice how truth is being presented. And once you start noticing that, you don't have to reject anyone outright, you just stop outsourcing your thinking. It was about an environment that rewards performance when formation disappears. And now you can see the pattern for yourself. The internet doesn't persuade, it selects. You don't need all the answers, but you should question the ones you're handed. Until next time, stay skeptical, stay curious, and always think first. Oh, and if you're wondering why this episode felt uncomfortable, that's the selection process working.